


Like Always

by magikfanfic



Series: Love Made Manifest [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff, M/M, Post-Rogue One, probably not canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 04:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9964733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magikfanfic/pseuds/magikfanfic
Summary: “I thought we were done.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> The other characters will no doubt pop back up in the next chapter, Chirrut has meddling to do after all, but it was about time for these two to have a proper talk about some things.

“I thought we were done.”

They have finished the training and the meditation for the day, Bodhi has left, and Baze is stretched out across the floor willing all the old and stiff parts of his body to stop aching when Chirrut speaks. The words are soft with no hard edges or grudges, nothing that should stick in his throat and make it hard to swallow, but they do anyway. Chirrut uses the same simple voice to ask this question as he does when he asks about the colors of the textiles that Jyn brings them, but the reminder clenches everything inside of Baze’s body, shoots adrenaline through him, makes him want to run, fight, hide, sob. Sob uncontrollably until everything associated with that beach, that moment has been washed out of his mind for once and all, forever, to never creep up on him in the middle of the night, to never darken his thoughts or his dreams. To never make words like that fall from Chirrut’s lips ever again.

Baze pushes it away, gives it no voice, doesn’t even make a sound, because Chirrut hasn’t talked about this since they came out of the bacta except to indicate that the Force saved them, and even though he doesn’t want to be anywhere near the topic, maybe Chirrut needs to be. His husband’s silence on this ordeal, on this miracle, on this whim of the Force has actually been concerning because this is exactly the sort of thing that, before Scarif, would have delighted Chirrut, would have filled his days and his stories, would have made that smile beam out, bright and true. And now Chirrut barely prays, slips into lackluster and shallow meditation, frowns more than Baze likes. The bacta healed them in body, yes, but there are so many more wounds that it could not touch. Baze feels them keenly, knives in the dark, monsters trapped in boxes in his brain. They’re supposed to be his burden, which is unfair because Chirrut is far stronger than he, always has been, and can manage on his own, but Baze has always tried to protect him from everything he could.

“I thought we were done,” Chirrut says again and there is a question lingering behind those words that he does not give voice to, though Baze feels it thrum through the Force. 

Why aren’t we done? And that one, oh that one, he cannot answer, cannot even come close to answering. The will of the Force has never been something that Baze attempted to understand, especially after he watched it let terrible things happen to his home, his people, his moon, Chirrut. Everything he has ever loved. Why now does it step in with a kind hand? Why now does it seem to care about their small lives floating in the middle of the galaxy? 

From where he is still stretched out on the floor, Baze watches Chirrut and wonders at how small and fragile the other man looks. It scares him, this sudden vision of his husband breakable. It reminds him too much of the other time on the beach. Chirrut is shirtless because he is unimpressed with the way that the Rebel clothing moves when he attempts to train so Baze’s attention gets pulled away from his face to the planes of scarred rose gold skin, the honed muscles caged beneath his flesh like something divine. There has never been a time when Baze has not found Chirrut beautiful, but now his gaze finds the angry wounds, still red as they were when Chirrut came out of the bacta. They have not faded down enough for Baze’s liking, and he worries over them, wonders if they will ever disappear into paler, whiter lines. He wonders whether there will ever be a time when he cannot trace his husband’s death across his skin.

“Baze,” Chirrut says, tone chiding as though he can feel the waves of emotion coming off of him, and he probably can. They have not been as close in the Force as they are now in years, and Baze forgets this, lets himself wander down roads in his mind that would better be left alone, gets trapped in endless spirals of sad, murky memory and worry. 

When he looks up at his husband’s face, the expression there sends another little jolt through his heart because Chirrut so rarely looks vulnerable, but there it is. The lost look that started on Hoth and has not been wiped away yet. Chirrut pats a hand against his thigh, and Baze groans as he levers himself off the floor, his entire body protesting loudly and painfully. He is too old and has let himself fall too far out of practice over the years. Baze Malbus the lazy, tired mercenary who decided that a gun was more important than hand to hand and is now regretting all of those decisions.

“Are you breaking?” Chirrut asks, a little light in his voice at Baze’s expense, but he will take it. He will take anything he can get. 

“Not any of the bits that matter,” he answers, and receives a smile in return, though it does not reach Chirrut’s eyes and that is the greatest tragedy he can consider right now. Slowly, with much protesting from his entire body, he settles himself in front of Chirrut, who has stretched his legs out to more fully allow Baze into his space. So Baze sits there, cross legged, his back to Chirrut’s chest, and Chirrut’s fingers brush through his hair. This is how they have had so many of their serious conversations over the years because Chirrut often needs physical activity to keep himself grounded. It comforts them both, the intimacy of it, the contact. 

The fingers are soft, gentle, as always as they start through his sweat damp hair, but if Chirrut minds that fact he makes no outward sign. “I thought we were done,” he says again, and someone else might have pressed him to get past the singular thought by this point, but Baze is patient. He has known Chirrut long enough to know that sometimes he has to ramp himself up, follow a certain path to something, repeat the beginning of that path until his feet seem steady on it. Baze will never rush Chirrut to speak. If anything, he rather enjoys their quieter moments. 

“I thought that the Force had decided we had finally been the Guardians we were supposed to have been. That we had protected something much larger, much better, than just ourselves or the kyber. I thought it would show me, finally, the secrets, the will.” There is a sadness to Chirrut’s voice that makes Baze want to catch his hands and press kisses to the pulse points in his wrists, to whisper that the greatest will of the Force that he has ever seen is the fact that Chirrut still breathes, but he says nothing, he lets Chirrut continue.

The hands in his hair do not falter, though the fingers shake a little, almost imperceptibly, but Baze has had a lifetime to memorize those hands, and he catches everything about them now. “When it happened,” and Chirrut stops for a moment, his fingers pressing against the nape of Baze’s neck, which he can only imagine is to comfort him because of the way his heart just stopped being reminded of it. “Shhhhh, love. When it happened, there were no answers. Nothing stepped out of the universe to explain itself to me. There was an instant of being scattered everywhere all at once and also never moving an inch from your side, but there was.” He trails off for a moment, hands continuing their work of brushing through Baze’s thick hair. “It didn’t just make sense the way I thought it would.”

Baze isn’t sure what to say, if he should even say anything at all. All he can offer, really, is the fact that he is so glad their time has not been stilled, that it does not matter to him if they ever find out what the Force is all about, how it works, whether or not it has some grand scheme in mind. None of that bothers him anymore because, when disaster was right there, so close he could taste it as easily as the blood in his mouth, it saved them. Not just one or the other, which Baze would never have been able to live with had he survived alone, but both of them. And not just them, either, but Bodhi, and Jyn, and Cassian. Maybe it was just an afterthought, an oversight, perhaps there was too much happening for the Force to properly sort it all out, or maybe it was a reward, but he doesn’t care. He will believe in the thing that wrapped him and Chirrut up, safe and sound. He will trust in the thing that let them speak, however brokenly, while they floated in bacta. Baze has always believed like a child believes, with everything; it’s just that he, again like a child, got mad and turned his back on the Force when it hurt him.

Chirrut believes like someone who has taken the time to understand. This has always been one of the biggest differences between them. Despite being woven into the fibers of the Force, despite being able to hear the kyber, and Baze, Chirrut remains skeptical. He renews his faith with every day that passes because each day passes. 

Baze opts to press his back more firmly against Chirrut’s chest, to settle a hand, warm and comforting, on his leg instead of releasing any more words into the air. They get haphazard sometimes, clutter things up, make it difficult to breathe. He doesn’t want his thoughts clogging up Chirrut’s need to speak, and it seems easier to communicate with touch alone. 

“I didn’t go anywhere you couldn’t,” Chirrut continues, though these words are whispered practically into Baze’s hair, and he nods because he knows. He knew. From the moment, it happened, he knew that, he could feel that. “I heard you. Did you feel me then?”

They haven’t talked about this. Baze has been quiet about Scarif, about the bacta. He blinks rapidly, trying to will the tears away before they spill down his cheeks because he doesn’t want the salt in the air. “I did,” he says the words on an exhale, makes them as quiet and small as possible because he is not sure if this is helping or hurting. Though he’s not sure which of them he is protecting at the moment.

“Scarif was a suicide mission, Baze,” Chirrut’s words continue as though he did not hear Baze, and Baze knows better. Chirrut hears everything, always has. “We knew that. Why do you think we remain? Did we not do enough?”

There it is, and it nearly pulls his heart from his chest. How could Chirrut ever think that he has not done enough? How could Chirrut look back at his long, devoted, selfless life and ever imagine that he has failed in any way? Baze is the failure. Baze the fallen. Baze the broken. The shell man who became a mercenary and walked away from the only place where he ever felt like he belonged to try and kill all the pain in his soul by soaking it in the blood of others. For credits. Credits to send home to the man he loved even if he had to do it with subterfuge so that Chirrut would not know it was blood money. Not that it mattered. Chirrut had known anyway. Just like always.

“No, I don’t think that. I just,” Baze hesitates, sighs, unsure of how to actually go on, how to have this conversation. He has been fine just feeling the Force, just being aware of Chirrut through it and modulating his reactions to things in order to keep it from getting too heavy for the other. Baze has always been better at sending than receiving or maybe it is just that he is not strong enough to receive as much as Chirrut, unable to focus as far away from himself as his husband. Or, perhaps, the Force has just never cared as much about him. None of these things would surprise him. He is not an impressive man, after all, though he is a man drawn to impressive things. 

When they were younger, he would allow himself to indulge in these theological conversations. No, not indulge. He loved them. He loved sitting on the floor of their room or in the library or in the courtyard, anywhere, and talking with Chirrut for hours about the Force, about what it meant, how it worked, how they could make it proud. Proud. As though it were a parent or a master and not some great cosmic energy running through everything. How is that a thing anyone can ever make proud?

“You never told me how childish I was,” he says, breaking the stream of their conversation for a moment, and Chirrut hums. His fingers have finished combing through Baze’s hair, and he is braiding now, though Baze feels a small pang of sadness that there is nothing fancy for him to weave into the locks the way that he used to when they were younger.

“Not childish,” Chirrut says, soft, comforting, the tone of voice that he knows Baze needs in more situations than he is normally willing to apply. “Devoted. The most devoted guardian of us all.” He presses a kiss to the back of Baze’s head with these words and then tugs a little insistently at a braid. “But this is not what we’re talking about.”

Baze huffs in slight amusement and concedes that he has, perhaps, strayed from the topic at hand. “I don’t think it is a punishment, Chirrut.” That is perhaps not the right word, and he clears his throat to indicate that he is not done before the other can correct him. “I mean that I don’t think the Force would have brought us back just because we had failed at our duties.” He tries not to think about all the ways that he has failed. “Can it not have been a gift?”

Chirrut hums again but does not answer, and Baze wishes that it were easier to see him. That is one of the drawbacks to this position, which sometimes makes it both easier and harder to admit to certain things. Baze presses his fingers gently against Chirrut’s thigh, prompting him to put his thoughts into words because it is impossible to imagine that Chirrut does not have some thoughts on this topic. His husband has thoughts on all topics, after all. Surely all of his vitriol has not been used up on the food and the clothing and not being on ground? Surely some of it is left for this discussion?

“There is a will to the Force, Baze. If we remain it is for something.”

“Can it not just be that we remain for each other? Is that too small for the Force? Is that too small for the galaxy? If everything is a ripple in the Force, then why do you think the ripple of our death would be the better one?” Baze isn’t sure if Chirrut is indicating that it is necessary to die for the greater good in order to serve it or if there is something else, something darker under the questions. And he worries that his words, his arguments make him sound as ignorant about the will of the Force as he has always felt. As an initiate, even as a Guardian, that fact that there was this great, big, unknown but wonderful thing out there thrilled him. He, too, wanted to figure out its secrets and would have laid his life down for it, but he never really thought the purpose of his life was to die for it. 

Baze scrubs his free hand over his face, unsure exactly where the conversation is going or what the endpoint of it will be. “Chirrut, why don’t you ask the Force?” 

Chirrut seems to have finish braiding his hair and is now just moving his hands through the strands, occasionally pressing his fingers into Baze’s neck and shoulders in an attempt to smooth out knots and tense muscles. “Baze, it’s hard without Jedha.” His voice shakes at the beginning but then goes flat again. “There are holes in the Force.”

NiJedha. Alderaan. Baze does not need Chirrut to utter these names because he knows them, he feels their absence when he stretches too far when they meditate. And he knows that they pull at Chirrut, too. This is another thing they have been avoiding discussing for the nicer subjects of helping Bodhi, and repairing the rift between Cassian and Jyn. Chirrut has always liked to keep himself busy, and Baze hasn’t completely thought about why he would want to stay so busy right now. “I know,” he says, and the acknowledgement is a paltry answer yet it is all he has.

“We didn’t stop them from happening.” It could be an accusation, but Baze doesn’t think it is even if Chirrut’s voice sounds strained. 

“No more than we could stop what happened to the Jedi,” Baze counters even though he hates acknowledging that because the echo of that pain will still catch up to the both of them, steal their breath in the middle of the night, and leave them wrecked like the fallen statues in the desert of Jedha. He wonders if they’re still there, sand strewn and forever waiting, or if the blast managed to finally destroy them as well, end their watch.  
Chirrut leans forward to rest his cheek on Baze’s back, arms snaking around to settle on his chest, and the contact makes him close his eyes and just take a moment to appreciate it. Appreciate the warmth and the solidness of Chirrut’s still living, still breathing body. “I don’t like what I feel when I reach out to the Force. It’s shouting.”

Baze settles a hand over Chirrut’s on his chest. “To be fair, you’ve never not listened to it before. Maybe it’s not sure how to react to that. Maybe it thinks you’ve abandoned it after it let you stay, and it doesn’t understand why you don’t say thank you, why you turn it away.”

“Is that what you’ve done?”

“Said thank you?” he repeats and then huffs into the silence in their room, his thumb tracing over the back of Chirrut’s hand gently. “Maybe. I’m not angry with it anymore. I can’t be. Even with NiJedha,” he can’t finish the thought. “I was ready to go, Chirrut, to wherever. I was ready to follow you. As always. I could feel you there but not there, and I was resigned to that. And then it didn’t happen. And in the bacta all I could hear was you, all I could feel was you. Force strong, Force bright. I don’t know if it was purposeful or if there was just so much going on, but we’re together in the Force, and I cannot be mad at it any longer when I know how deep that goes.” It is a tumble of words that Baze is not sure makes sense or not. It’s hard to encompass the experience into words, especially for him because when it boils down to it, he means, always, you are here so I am here, but that is too simple to say and would only frustrate Chirrut. 

“Why a temple?”

Chirrut is pulling no punches when it comes to the hard questions today, and Baze shifts slightly in his embrace, which prompts a kiss to his spine that sends sparks over his skin. Like always. He is old and tired, nearly killed in so many fire fights over the years, worn down by life itself, and he should probably stop feeling like a teenager with his first crush any day now, but it never happens. It’s never anything but extraordinary. “To fill those holes in the Force,” he answers because that is the simple part of it, the easy part to admit to. If they are actively teaching about it, preaching about its will and how it fills everything, then it will be harder for people to forget about it. Maybe it will not just be a legend in the back of people’s minds, a glow in their hearts, a wish that can never come true. 

“Maybe that is why the Force let us remain. Maybe that is what it wants, Chirrut. Not for us to die in its service, but to live in it again.” He feels young admitting that aloud because it is so raw, so hopeful. Those are the sorts of words that initiate Baze Malbus would have said, eyes bright, heart full of all the love in the universe before it brought a foot down on his back, broke all those dreams in front of him and set the pieces on fire.

Baze is not used to carrying the weight of their conversations, and he shifts again, uncomfortable, feeling split wide open and without any scrap of protection. It is a feeling that he has not experienced in so long, but he is not afraid because Chirrut is wrapped around him solid and perfect and loving. His mind flickers through some of their common bickering, Chirrut saying that the Force protected him while Baze argued that it had been him. It was not until recently that he understood why his protestations always made Chirrut look bewildered. It was not until recently that he discovered that the two things were one and the same. 

“You knew,” Chirrut chides him, pressing a judgmental finger into his abdomen. “You just did not want to see.”

His huff is one of agreement, and they fall into a comfortable silence for a few minutes, impressions and feelings flowing between them in the Force. It is not thoughts for Baze now. He has never been that good. The only time he got clear words was when they were in the bacta, and he attributes that, primarily, to how close to the Force they were, how far from life, how unfettered to their physical bodies. Chirrut, on the other hand, has always been good at picking the scraps out of his mind, the thoughts that rise to the forefront, and he always feels bad about how much lingers there because Baze’s mind rarely shuts up. No, this is more a lingering of warmth and love and hope. 

Ever since Jyn’s kyber crystal sang to Chirrut in the marketplace, their life has become a journey of hope. Baze is afraid to admit how much he loves this fact, scared to give voice to it because he’s concerned that it might be ripped away from him and leave yet more gaping holes that he is powerless to fill.

“You left Jedha,” Chirrut says and there is another dagger to the ribs. 

Baze nods. It is not anything he can deny. He left. He left Chirrut, but never really freed himself from his orbit, never wanted to. Still he left him alone with bitter words in both of their mouths, words that still rise to choke him when he is not keeping an eye on them as closely as he should. “I still regret that.”

Chirrut hums and his fingers drum against Baze’s chest. “Stop. I just meant that you have seen other places, known other worlds. I only ever knew Jedha because I wouldn’t leave until there was no other choice. It was home. I knew how to meditate with the kyber around me. I knew how to meditate with the temple around me even when it had fallen. It didn’t matter that the structure was not there because it still existed inside of me, and in the Force. Now the Force shouts, and I don’t know what to cling to in the wake.” It is rare to catch Chirrut vulnerable and shaken and admitting to insecurities. Not because Chirrut is above them, but he normally hides them behind a smile and a glib comment. Chirrut laughs until the pain recedes unlike Baze who rolls in it the way that a dog will roll in a dead thing, until the scent clings to every bit of him.

Baze folds both his hands over his husband’s and squeezes gently. “You’ll get back to that same feeling, Chirrut. I know you will. It’s okay if it takes some time. This is new. You’re the only one who ever expected you to have all the answers, love. Some things you just trust in, yes?” It’s a reflection of a comment that Chirrut once threw at him as he was walking out of their door, but Baze likes it better this way, understands it now, and wants to impart that feeling back to Chirrut, wants nothing more than to find something that will wipe the lost look away from his husband’s face for good. 

Suddenly he wants very much to see the other’s face, make sure that he hears him. His body is still protesting simple movements. He has been spending too much time throwing himself right back into the midst of things, and it flares through his joints as he turns. Chirrut responds by folding his own legs and now they are knee to knee. Baze cups his face in his hands and presses their foreheads together, sharing breath as easily as they share all things. “We’ll have a home again, Chirrut. I’ll build a new home.” Even if he has to carve it out of a cliff-side or build it pebble by pebble, he will find a way.

“You are a sentimental fool,” Chirrut chides him, voice warm at the edges, fond. “I am home.” His fingers come back up to rest against Baze’s chest, right over where his heart is speeding up at the proximity, at the declarations of love that could go on forever and never overwhelm him. “But you can build us a temple. I will allow that.”

“And the Force?” His voice is breathy, ragged suddenly. All Baze wants is to find some little nook in the universe that will let them be for a while. All he wants is somewhere that he and Chirrut can teach, where Bodhi can visit or stay and be well, where Jyn can linger if she chooses, and Cassian, too, though he is the hardest. He wants to cook again and see the delight in the eyes of children as they learn about something bigger than they are. One of the boxes in his mind, in his heart, got cracked open in the bacta and it just keeps spilling all of its light through him. He wonders, dimly, if the Force did that.

Chirrut sighs as though he has still not come to a decision about that, and Baze cannot blame him. He spent years running away from his own faith, after all, slamming door after door, leaning against them with arms folded and refusing to answer no matter who knocked. Chirrut clears his throat as though nervous about the next step, and Baze runs his fingers down his cheeks in reassurance. “Perhaps I should ask the Force. Will you,” he cuts himself off and then wraps his hands around Baze’s wrists. Even though Chirrut’s hands are elegant, long fingered and among the prettiest things that he has even seen, they only barely manage to wrap all the way around. “Meditate with me?” he asks when he has found the courage to continue.

Twining their fingers together, Baze settles their hands in his lap, keeping their heads and their knees pressed together. “Of course. Always.” He takes a breath, and he can tell that Chirrut is shaking just a bit, can feel that through all their points of contact. He squeezes the hands in his, wills strength into them. Baze closes his eyes and clears his mind as much as he can, but the thrum of the Force, the sense of Chirrut right there across from him doesn’t recede, it never does, it never will. 

He starts the chant, knowing that Chirrut will take up the counterpoint. “I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me. I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me. I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.” It takes a couple of moments before he hears the second part.

“The Force is with me. I am one with the Force.” It is not the sweetest thing that Baze has ever heard, that was the first time that Chirrut whispered he loved him, but it is close. It is so close.


End file.
